About 30 subspecies of the common pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) are currently recognised by major ornithological authorities, revealing pronounced geographic variation within this species.

The geographic variation is particularly evident in the male plumage colouration. At the western limits of the species' native range, subspecies lack a white neck collar and exhibit a strong reddish overall plumage tone that extends to the rump and upper tail coverts ("red-rumped pheasants"). In these subspecies, black-and-white markings are present but less conspicuous. At the eastern limits of the species' range, subspecies possess a pronounced white neck collar and display a contrasting plumage pattern of yellow and red areas bearing prominent black and white markings, while the rump and upper tail coverts are greyish with bright orange patches on either side ("grey-rumped pheasants"). Along the eastern margins of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (Hengduan Mountains, Min Mountains, Qinling Mountains and Qaidam Basin), several subspecies exhibit a blue-green chest colouration of varying intensity. This differs markedly from their counterparts farther east, where a copper-red chest colour dominates. In northern Central Asia, males exhibit a strong purple-greenish gloss in their plumage and possess a well-developed white neck collar. In southern Central Asia, the plumage is characterised by striking golden-and-black contrasts and white wing coverts, while the white neck collar is strongly reduced or absent. The transition between red-rumped and grey-rumped pheasants occurs at the eastern end of the Tarim Basin. The presence or absence of white superciliary stripes tends to correlate with the presence or absence of a white neck collar. Subspecies differentiation has occurred both through the isolation of populations in riverine or oasis habitats by deserts and semi-deserts, and through the formation of mountain barriers.

Overview Subspecies of Phasianus colchicus are native to a range extending from the Caucasus and Central Asia to eastern China. They occur across the lower mid-latitudes of Eurasia, where they are widespread in shrubland near forest edges and openings, near watercourses and reservoirs, and in agricultural fields, or are sparsely distributed in desert and semi-desert areas, where they occur in tugay forests along rivers and near oases. They occur both in plains and on montane slopes. In winter, they are restricted to areas with no snow or snow cover of less than 10–20 cm on the ground. Several subspecies have been widely introduced outside their native range, where they freely hybridise. Reintroductions into native areas pose serious problems, as hybrid pheasants genetically swamp native populations, leading locally to their extinction. Native forms highly endangered by this process include, for example, all Caucasus subspecies and the subspecies in Taiwan.

The considerable geographic variation of the common pheasant has long attracted ornithologists. Plates 34-41. Plates I-VIII. Plate 469. Plates 701-702 Early reviews were provided by William Robert Ogilvie-Grant, by Sergei Buturlin, and by Sergei Alphéraky and Valentin Bianchi. Detailed revisions were offered by Ernst Hartert, and by William Beebe. The Soviet perspective was detailed in influential works by Sergei Buturlin and Georgi Dementiev, the Chinese perspective by the seminal work of Zuoxin Zheng (Tso-hsin Cheng). Several more recent books and reviews provide detailed accounts of plumage colouration and geographic variability in the Common Pheasant.

Accepted subspecies This article follows the taxonomy of IOC World Bird List (version 15.1). Subspecies Authority Native distribution 1. Red-rumped pheasants Black-necked Pheasants P. c. colchicus Linnaeus, 1758 Caucasus (Georgia, Azerbaijan, and adjacent areas in Armenia and Iran), Nestos delta in Greece P. c. septentrionalis Lorenz, 1889 N slopes of Caucasus and W coast of Caspian Sea (Russia) P. c. talischensis Lorenz, 1889 SW coast of Caspian Sea (Azerbaijan, Iran) P. c. persicus Severtsov, 1874 SE coast of Caspian Sea (Iran) and SW Turkmenistan White-winged Pheasants P. c. principalis Sclater, 1885 SE Turkmenistan, far NE Iran, and NW Afghanistan P. c. zarudnyi Buturlin, 1904 central valleys of the Amu Darya river on the E Turkmenistan–Uzbekistan border P. c. zerafschanicus Tarnovski, 1893 Bukhara and valley of Zerafshan river in S Uzbekistan P. c. chrysomelas Severtsov, 1874 Amu Darya delta, in W Uzbekistan and adjacent N Turkmenistan P. c. bianchii Buturlin, 1904 upper valley of the Amu Darya in S Uzbekistan, SW Tajikistan, and extreme N Afghanistan P. c. shawii Elliot, 1870 valleys of Kashgar Daria and Yarkand Daria E to Hotan Daria, lower Aksu and upper Tarim Kyrghyz Pheasants P. c. turcestanicus Lorenz, 1896 Syr Darya valley in S Kazakhstan SE to Fergana Basin in E Uzbekistan and borders of Kyrgyzstan P. c. mongolicus Brandt, 1844 N Tian Shan in N Kyrgyzstan northward to Balkhash Lake, and eastward to NW Xinjiang and Urumchi Tarim Pheasants P. c. tarimensis Pleske, 1889 valleys of the lower Tarim, Cherchen Daria, Lake Bagratsch-kul and Lob-nor 2. Grey-rumped pheasants Yunnan Pheasants P. c. elegans Elliot, 1870 W Sichuan to NW Yunnan, NE Myanmar and E Tibet P. c. rothschildi La Touche, 1922 mountains of SE Yunnan and adjacent parts of N Tonkin Western Grey-rumped Pheasants P. c. vlangalii Przevalski, 1876 E Qaidam basin between the South Koko-nor and Burchan Budda ranges (Burhan Budai Shan) P. c. suehschanensis Bianchi, 1906 NW Sichuan south of the Minshans P. c. strauchi Przevalski, 1876 Gansu, north to the Datong River, east to C and S Shaanxi, south into NE Sichuan P. c. sohokhotensis Buturlin, 1908 Sohokhoto Oasis (Minqin County), and possibly northern foothills of Qilian Shan P. c. satscheuensis Pleske, 1892 extreme W Gansu north of the Nanshan P. c. edzinensis Sushkin, 1926 valley of the Edzin-gol P. c. alaschanicus Alferaki & Bianchi, 1908 oases near the W foothills of the middle Helanshan P. c. kiangsuensis Buturlin, 1904 W Hebei, Shanxi, N Shaanxi, and adjacent Inner Mongolia west to Ordos plateau Eastern Grey-rumped Pheasants P. c. hagenbecki Rothschild, 1901 Kobdo valley in W Mongolia P. c. pallasi Rothschild, 1903 SE Siberia from the upper Amur and Ussuriland south to N Korean Peninsula P. c. karpowi Buturlin, 1904 S Manchuria and N Liaoning to N Hebei, Beijing, Korea and Jeju Island P. c. torquatus Gmelin, 1789 E China (Hebei and Shandong) to Vietnam border. P. c. takatsukasae Delacour, 1927 S Guangxi and NE Vietnam (Tonkin) P. c. decollatus Swinhoe, 1870 Sichuan to NW Hunan, SW Henan, NE Yunnan, and Guizhou Taiwan Pheasants P. c. formosanus Elliot, 1870 Taiwan

Apart from Albania, Montenegro, and Bulgaria, where native populations are now genetically extinct, the following countries host native subspecies of Phasianus colchicus: Countries # ssp. Subspecies Greece, Turkey, Armenia, Georgia 1 P. c. colchicus Azerbaijan 3 P. c. colchicus, P. c. septentrionalis, P. c. talischensis Russia 2 P. c. septentrionalis, P. c. pallasi Iran 4 P. c. colchicus, P. c. talischensis, P. c. persicus, P. c. principalis Afghanistan 2-3 P. c. principalis, P. c. bainchii, P. c. zarudnyi ?, likely all extinct Turkmenistan 4 P. c. persicus, P. c. principalis, P. c. chrysomelas, P. c. zarudnyi Uzbekistan 5 P. c. chrysomelas, P. c. zarudnyi, P. c. zerafschanicus, P. c. bianchii, P. c. turcestanicus Tajikistan 3 P. c. bianchii, P. c. zerafschanicus, P. c. turcestanicus Kyrgyzstan 2-3 P. c. turcestanicus, P. c. mongolicus, P. c. bianchii ? Kazakhstan 3 P. c. septentrionalis, P. c. turcestanicus, P. c. mongolicus Mongolia 2 P. c. hagenbecki, P. c. pallasi North Korea, South Korea 2 P. c. karpowi, P. c. pallasi China 18 P. c. mongolicus, P. c. shawii, P. c. tarimensis, P. c. vlangalii, P. c. satscheuensis, P. c. edzinensis, P. c. sohokhotensis, P. c. alaschanicus, P. c. strauchi, P. c. kiangsuensis, P. c. suehschanensis, P. c. elegans, P. c. rothschildi, P. c. decollatus, P. c. takatsukasae, P. c. torquatus, P. c. karpowi, P. c. pallasi Taiwan 1 P. c. formosanus Vietnam 3-4 P. c. takatsukasae, P. c. torquatus, P. c. rothschildi, P. c. elegans ? Laos ? 0-2 P. c. rothschildi ?, P. c. elegans ? Myanmar 1 P. c. elegans

Subspecies accounts Traditionally, the common pheasant is divided into a Western red-rumped subspecies group and an Eastern grey-rumped subspecies group. The dividing line runs in a north–south direction across the eastern end of the Tarim Basin. The Tarim pheasant shows intermediate rump colouration; however, it is more closely related to the red-rumped group. Within these two large groups, there are several well-defined subgroups. Subspecies within each subgroup are more closely related to each other than to those of other subgroups, and typically show various degrees of clinal geographic variation.

According to various mDNA studies, the Western group of subspecies of the common pheasant is phylogenetically distinct from all pheasants in the Eastern group, forming a clade. Within the grey-rumped Eastern group, the elegans-group (consisting of P. c. elegans and P. c. rothschildi) is basal to all other subspecies within this group. Recent phylogenetic studies suggest that the Elegans-group may, in fact, be basal to all other subspecies groups of the common pheasant; otherwise, the Eastern and Western groups are phylogenetically well supported. The classification below follows the traditional classification scheme. The green pheasant Phasianus versicolor replaces the common pheasant on the Japanese islands and is the sister species to the common pheasant. Historically, it was sometimes treated as a subspecies of the common pheasant; however, phylogenetic studies confirm that it is a separate species.

1. Western group (Red-rumped pheasants)

The lower back, rump, and middle upper tail-coverts are generally coppery-red, bronze-red, maroon, or rusty-orange in colouration, sometimes tinged with green or glossed with an oily greenish sheen. The dark bars on the basal half of the tail are usually, but not always, very narrow (~2 mm). The lesser and median wing-coverts are sandy-brown, sandy-rufous, whitish, or white. There is never any trace of a white supercilium.

1.1. Colchicus group (Black-necked pheasants)